Authorities in Iraq have ten thousand supporters of the old Baathist regime in jail. Among them are the captured dictator Saddam Hussein and most of his henchmen, including his cousin, Ali Hasan Majid, who was directly responsible for the poison gas attacks on the Kurdish population of Halabja in 1988. They have all been visited by the International Red Cross (IRC), one of whose officials recently delivered a letter from the deposed dictator to his sisters living in Jordan. So far the IRC has made no complaint about the treatment of these formerly high-ranking prisoners. It can be assumed that they are being looked after adequately and being handled in a civilized manner.
It must be wondered however if these detainees ever reflect upon the contrasts in the way that they are being treated with the way that they treated their own prisoners during their ruthless years in power. Mass graves are still being uncovered in Iraq. The stories of torture and murder by the old regime are so widespread, they no longer excite comment. Saddam’s Iraq was a brutal and merciless state where the slightest dissent produced the most savage punishment.
After his capture in a hole in the ground, television pictures showed a frightened and pathetic Saddam, complaining to his captors of a bad tooth during a medical examination. He later reportedly recovered his composure and now behaves with his old arrogance. He probably believes that the benign regime of imprisonment to which he is being subjected is only his due as a former head of state. Maybe his fellow Baathist leaders are equally oblivious. This may however change when they are brought to trial and have to face in horrific detail evidence of the terrible crimes they committed against their own people and their neighbors.
The people of the new Iraq, still beset by terrorist violence, have other things on their mind at the moment. But when Saddam and his fellow creatures finally come to trial, bitter memories will be rekindled of the long nightmare of Baathist rule. All the pent-up fury at the long years of brutalization and terror will be unleashed. There will almost certainly be a steadily growing demand for vengeance. Iraqis deserve to see Saddam and his cohorts punished.
What is most important however in the judicial process is that it must be seen to be impartial. There must be no show trials. The accused must all be given the opportunity to defend themselves. They should be treated with fairness and correctness. In short, they should be given every privilege which they themselves so regularly and routinely denied their own victims. In so doing, the new Iraq will be asserting strongly that it has really broken with the bloody Baathist past and is embarking upon a just and honorable future for itself.
